Risk Analyst
Why Polar?
It's never been easier to build, ship and scale software.
But it's never been harder to monetize it.
Modern startups look fundamentally different than prior generations:
Smaller teams
Exponential revenue growth relative to headcount
Higher variability in costs (LLMs) requiring more frequent pricing iterations
Laser focused on product development and distribution
Delegating and automating everything that is boilerplate – be it in their codebase or business operations.
Exceptional billing primitives, APIs and SDKs are essential, but delightful integration is not enough.
Startups need a billing platform designed for their speed of iteration. Combining billing and analytics in one platform to offer customer- and feature unit economics in real-time. Offering built-in pricing and cost insights, simulations and optimizations while simultaneously handling international compliance, tax management, fraud prevention and more.
That's Polar. We're building the next standard for applied AI startups.
Join our small, talented and engineering-led team across Europe as we build the infrastructure powering the next generation of software companies.
We focus on shipping at high velocity to serve startup founders scale their businesses. Everything else is secondary.
Role & responsibilities: What you will do
We’re hiring a Risk Analyst to help us build and scale the risk function at Polar. This is a high-impact role where you’ll help define how risk is handled in a fast-growing environment, working at the intersection of payments, compliance, and product.
You’ll work with the team to:
Shape how Polar approaches risk at scale: Build the foundations for how we assess, manage, and evolve risk as we grow.
Assess and manage risk across the platform: From onboarding (KYB/KYC) to ongoing merchant monitoring and transaction-level analysis.
Understand and mitigate payments risk: Analyze patterns across transactions, chargebacks, and disputes, and working with partners to prevent and resolve issues.
Improve internal tooling and operations: Develop scalable workflows, systems and controls in close collaboration with product and engineering. Combined with building out dashboards & data analysis on your own to continuously improve how we track and optimize our risk efforts.
What we’re looking for
Systems Thinking & Operating Mindset
Deep systems thinking - you understand how risk emerges across the full lifecycle (onboarding, transactions, payouts), anticipate failure modes, and reason about edge cases in complex payment flows.
Risk and compliance-aware mindset - you treat auditability, regulatory requirements, and financial integrity as first-order considerations in how decisions are made and processes are designed.
Strong product judgement - you balance risk mitigation with growth and user experience, knowing when to enforce controls and when to enable speed.
Strong merchant empathy - you understand how risk decisions impact real businesses, and aim to minimize friction while maintaining platform integrity.
High ownership and collaborative mindset - you operate effectively in small, high-ownership teams, working cross-functionally with product, support, and payments partners to drive outcomes.
Analytical & Operational skills
Strong analytical skills - you identify patterns across transactions, disputes, and merchant behavior, and make structured, data-informed decisions.
Comfortable working with data - you are highly proficient in SQL and can investigate anomalies, monitor trends, and support reporting needs.
Strong investigative instincts - you can trace inconsistencies across payments, merchant activity, and documented, balancing automation with manual review where needed.
Clear written communication - you document decisions, explain risk assessments, and communicate clearly with both internal teams and external partners.
Experience
3-6+ years of experience in risk, payments, compliance, or fraud-related roles, ideally in fintech, or similar environments.
Hands on experience with
KYC/KYB and merchant onboarding
Transaction monitoring and fraud detection
Chargebacks and dispute handling
Familiarity with payments infrastructure - including how transactions flow, where risk is introduced, and how PSPs and partners operate.
Experience working with or alongside payment service providers, financial platforms, or merchant-facing products.
What we offer
Meaningful ownership: Small team & large surface area. You’ll directly influence how the company and platform scale.
Product-driven culture: We build to empower the next generation of software companies - and operate with the same builder mindset internally.
Competitive compensation: Salary and equity aligned with the impact of the role.
Exceptional team: Work with highly talented team members distributed across Europe.
Remote-first environment: Work from anywhere in Europe, with a home office setup budget available.
Annual team offsites: As the team is spread across Europe, we gather in person at least once a year to collaborate, plan, and spend time.
Health Benefits: Comprehensive health coverage to support you and your family.
Parental leave: Paid parental leave aligned with the standards and regulations of your local jurisdiction.
How We Hire
Polar is a remote-first company, with team members across Europe, and our hiring process is fully remote via video calls and email.
Hiring Process
Application Review: We review your application and previous work.
Intro call: A short conversation with Birk (Founder and CEO) to learn more about you and give you a chance to learn more about Polar.
Take-home Assignment: A practical exercise designed to reflect the kind of problems you would work on in the role.
Assignment Review: We review your assignment and feedback together
Team Conversations: 2-3 video calls where you get the chance to meet future team members.
Offer 🎉
Reference Calls